To the Lighthouse

In reflecting upon the Politics of the Modernists – especially Bloomsbury, I am still struck by the mild, cruel joke that time played on the Woolfs. Situated between the hammer and the anvil, they remained near the shore, bracing for impact. Yet, still, I am perplexed why the remained. Was it a – not romantic – emotionally dependent clinging to their home? Had they become like so many old married couples in that they felt wedded to their home as well as each other? Additionally, I researched Operation Sealion – the German plan to invade the United Kingdom. Hitler had come to view the plan as impossible by 1940 (though he did not withdraw the troops assigned to this duty until 1942 – romantic notions abound). How ironic.

But, still, I cannot get past the sense of defeat that pervades Woolf’s behavior. She refused to fight, then remained in a war zone, and then killed herself partly due to the stresses of war.

It feels like her suicide had roots much further back.

In considering To the Lighthouse, one finds much fodder for thought. In particular, the explicit implicitness of her critique of the British Empire resounds quite fully. If Katharine Mansfield portrayed her society as hostile to women, then Woolf shows the entire society to be a car both broken-down and out of control, sputtering towards its final resting place. Mr. Ramsay, for example, stands as dominant and domineering patriarch. He is learned, but for all of his learning, he rarely seems active – not unlike an empire that spread its culture far and wide but fell apart. Likewise, he comes across as profoundly impotent. Despite the fact that he is the head of the household and possesses the ability to veto actions, he is constantly chasing approval – validation of his learning – and fleeing to the arms of his wife when it is not forthcoming. Later, when she dies, he is adrift for his true source of power has vanished.

Digression: Mrs. Ramsay, while lacking the power to vote, certainly influenced her husband. This portrayal of “power behind the throne” during the pre-suffrage era seems less than coincidental.

Return: Also, the constant mutterings of Tennyson also point to the breakdown of empire. “Some one had blundered.” The Charge of the Light Brigade seems doubly significant. The poem itself marked one of the greatest sea changes in the structure of the British military as well as opened up the leadership to questioning from the public. The notion of the noble commander, unwavering in his certitude, was no longer accepted. That Woolf cites it once is important; Mr. Ramsay’s quoting of it – almost in bewilderment – shows him desperately clinging to the past.

Consider: Mr. Ramsay is the patriarch who quotes Tennyson, but the poem he quotes is no paean to the Empire’s former glory but a bemoaning the breakdown of the Empire and the betrayal of its subjects.

In addition, one also senses that Woolf is marking the before and after the event that signaled the twilight of the Empire: World War I. If the events in the first third of the novel seem distant and diffuse, and the events in the second feel like an old wound finally healing, then the events of the middle third treat the war almost like the elephant in the room. The disruption it causes is mentioned in passing – not unlike something the people within the story are actively trying to ignore but cannot.

Also, one last observation. The journey to the lighthouse, especially with the healing that takes place there, has echoes of the Grail myth and the Fisher King – the father/king and his son find reconciliation as other members of the family find their attitudes changed. Memory is accepted. There is a wholeness at the end that did not exist at the beginning.

I may want to reflect on this further.